The Road Pages 200-230 Discussion

Passage 7: “I think maybe they are watching, he said. They are watching for a thing that even death cannot undo and if they do not see it they will turn away from us and they will not come back” (210).

Passages 6 & 7: Connections “Do you think that your fathers are watching? That they weigh you in their ledgerbook? Against what? There is no book and your fathers are dead in the ground” (196). “I think maybe they are watching, he said. They are watching for a thing that even death cannot undo and if they do not see it they will turn away from us and they will not come back” (210). Who are the “fathers” and what is the “thing” they are looking for that “even death cannot undo”? Why has McCarthy left so much space between the question and the answer in the book?

Read the passage on 227-228

227-228: Photo Glossary dovetailed humidor verdigris baize

227-228: Photo Glossary sextant: 1. an astronomical instrument used to determine latitude and longitude at sea by measuring angular distances, especially the altitudes of sun, moon, and stars. 2. an optical instrument used in navigation and consisting of a telescope through which a sighting of a heavenly body is taken, with protractors for determining its angular distance above the horizon or from another heavenly body 3. An instrument containing a graduated 60° arc and a movable pivoted arm corresponding to the radius of the arc's circle, used in celestial navigation  to measure the altitude of a celestial body in order to determine the observer's latitude and longitude.

The Sextant Why did it “stir” the man to look at the object? How might the item be symbolic?